


Read My Mind

by FizzingWizard



Category: Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure tri.
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 05:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26800009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FizzingWizard/pseuds/FizzingWizard
Summary: Koushirou's neither a romantic nor an idealist. The ever practical wiz kid's grown up and got his life in perfect order, except for these awful dreams about his unfairly attractive best friend that torment his nights! The worst part is... he doesn't want them to stop.(its a straight up steamy taishiro romance, what am i doing)
Relationships: Izumi Koushirou | Izzy Izumi/Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya
Comments: 19
Kudos: 45





	1. Invitation

"I want to kiss you."

Taichi had that predatory look on his face: the one that said, I know what I want, and I know how to get it. Koushirou had always envied him that, the way he could... impress his will on other people. Make them believe they wanted the same thing he did and always had.

It was uncomfortably hot in his room.

They sat cross-legged on the floor, across from each other, Koushirou's tablet balanced on his lap. This was itself odd, as Koushirou's habit was to work at his desk, while Taichi would sprawl out on his bed or the rug like a lazy cat. But the usual arrangement would make it harder for Taichi to now reach across and snap the tablet shut, his face coming so close their noses could almost bump.

As if shocked, Koushirou jerked away. His heart raced. Meanwhile, Taichi let the aborted attempt - whatever it was - morph seemlessly into a full-body stretch. Then his arms settled on his knees. He looked like some sort of unruly gargoyle, hunched over and deliberating.

"You don't want to?" he asked.

"I... I..." Koushirou licked his lips, which were suddenly dry as the Sahara. "Uhh..."

A recollection of some businessman at a conference complimenting him on his how well-spoken he was despite his youth and inexerpience came crashing back to bite him. _"Most high school students have the vocabulary of a gorilla that got hit in the head by a coconut."_ Evocative, to say the least. At the time, he'd let it roll off as the impotent bleating of yet another middle aged suit who misjudged how well he understood younger generations due to lack of spending any time with them. It had been on the tip of his tongue to point out that the probability of a gorilla being brained by a coconut was low given that coconut trees tend to be coastal and gorillas, not.

Now, his mind could focus on nothing but a downpour of coconuts, all aiming for his unprotected skull. He blinked very fast.

"Are you batting your eyes at me?" The corner of Taichi's mouth pulled back in an amused half-grin.

"No!" Koushirou blurted out.

Laughing, Taichi raised his arms in surrender. "Alright, alright! Chill out! Look, you don't need to get so wound up." The smile softened. "I won't do anything until you say so, Koushirou."

Swallowing, Koushirou let his fingers curl in the yellow shag rug. His throat worked. _Say something!_

On the other hand, what was there to say? Nothing would happen if he didn't speak up, and nothing was what he wanted.

 _Oh, it is, is it?_ sneered a voice in his head. An annoying, mocking voice that went unfazed by everything Koushirou listed in his defense: that he liked his life as it was, that he excelled at most subjects in school, that his parents were proud of him, his teachers adored him, that he had _friends_ and a _job_ which had even given him his own office at the tender age of seventeen. Things were going _well._ He didn't need any complications, not even the kind with supple sun-tanned limbs and dark eyes that seemed to pierce right through him...

Taichi bent down.

"Psych," he grinned, and closed the gap between them.

Koushirou felt his lips - a firm hand grasping his leg - fingers in his hair - and there was a burgeoning pressure that built and built, pushing him over the edge of _he didn't know what -_

His first kiss came to an abrupt end. In the heat of the moment, they'd fallen over, Koushirou flat on his back, Taichi's arms planted on either side of him. Koushirou gazed up at the face of his friend, the friend he'd been dreaming about secretly for years, who for once was staring back at him like he too couldn't see anything else. Their hot breaths mixed in the air. The inifitesimal space between them pulsed with electricity.

_Seems to me things are already plenty "complicated."_

Koushirou closed his eyes.

* * *

Sunlight filtered through the window, casting faint shadows on the wall. Outside, he could hear the neighbors puttering around, the churn of a washing machine, a wailing toddler.

A normal day to wake up damp with sweat. He peeled his pajamas off in agitation and dumped them in the hamper.

The strangest part of the dream, he reflected, was the yellow shag rug. The rug in his room was blue, not yellow, and also had been thrown away years ago, frayed and discolored with spilled oolong tea. Perhaps on some level he disliked the open wood floor and this was his brain's way of telling him. The feathery rug had felt so softy and cozy between his dream-world toes.

_Way to ignore the elephant in the room. Or should I say the elephant in your pants?_

Koushirou's mind was a loud place. That was fine as long as he kept it occupied with calculations and programming problems, yet stray thoughts tended to sneak in at inopportune times.

Elementary school had been fraught with paralyzing moments of anxiety whenever he was expected to do anything athletic in front of other people. And there were other, more generic doubts, the kind that questioned whether he was on the right track, whether he was even on any track to begin with. He didn't have many friends back then. None, in fact. Small wonder he got used to thinking himself in circles, like the children's song about the monkey and the weasel. Those anxiety thoughts still reared their heads now and then, but self-pity wasn't a pitfall Koushirou fell into often, and things had improved a lot since he'd learned to open up more.

But now there were these intrusive _new_ thoughts. And sometimes the way they blared like klaxons in his head was downright freaky.

At his bedside, the digital clock blinked just past seven a.m. He'd gone to bed at 3. Maybe he'd stay home today. There was no longer any real need for him to attend school, now that he had a job and his future was all but set. But he still liked to go now and then to see his friends. Opportunities to get together with them were scarce outside of the schoolyard these days. Though, what with all their different schedules, even that had became a matter of luck.

Yamato still performed with his band, and when he wasn't rehearsing he was studying, and when he wasn't studying he cooked or went to the gym. Sora hurried home to her mother's studio in the afternoons, and spent many weekends volunteering at local ikebana exhibitions. But she always had a friendly hello for Koushirou when their paths crossed.

Mimi he saw every day in class. With her entourage. The days when she'd butt heads with her classmates were long gone. Now she was popular - _very_ popular. To her hear tell it, she had the entire second year wrapped around her finger. And she probably did. Excitable, irrepressible Mimi.

Jou was in college, drowning in textbooks and student loan debt. Takeru, Hikari, and Daisuke spent afternoons cooped up at one or the other's house prepping for high school exams (often with Ken in tow). Miyako Koushirou still ran into at events, but she seemed to have quite enough on her plate at her school, where she was on an accelerated study track. She always seemed in a rush and harried about something. Iori now came to Koushirou whenever he had a computer issue, since Miyako, as he put it, had "turned scary."

Even Taichi was difficult to pin down. Ever since Koushirou first met him, Taichi had always been the sort to get Involved: he was class representative, then committee leader for the cultural festival, not to mention captain of the soccer team. But to the suprise of many, this past year he'd started going to cram school and dropped a bunch of extracurriculars. Including soccer.

He still hiked it to Koushirou's to hang out, or sometimes, if Koushirou was at the office and had no meetings on the agenda, Taichi would go there. In general, Koushirou didn't want to have to entertain visitors, but Taichi didn't expect anything like that. He would commandeer the coffee table and spread out his books for a couple hours, as if Koushirou's office were an Internet cafe. He didn't seem to mind the occasions when Koushirou got so wrapped up in a project that he forgot to talk at all.

Most people would chafe if their friend ignored them like that. Not Taichi. He was the definition of a low-maintenance. He let himself in, remembered to shut the door on his way out. Never interrupted Koushirou at work. In fact, now and then Koushirou wished he'd... interrupt more often.

_He interrupts you plenty in your dreams._

The top button of his shirt slipped free of his fingers, impishly pleased. Koushirou bit back a curse. (Contrary to what others believed, he did, on occasion, use strong language. He kept it to a minimum, so when he let loose the effect retained maximum bruising power.)

_Fuck me._

* * *

In the end he went to school after all. It was a better option by far than staying home with nothing to drown out his thoughts. At the entrance he unwound the thick wool scarf his mother had hand-knit for him some years ago, because his skin was so sensitive to cold, she said. Already he could feel the tip of his nose pinkening.

Autumns in Tokyo were mild, but a late October cold spell had brought color to the trees earlier than usual. The school grounds were layered in splashes of red and gold leaves scattered by the gingko trees and maples lining the walk.

Koushirou stamped his feet before changing into his indoor shoes. Straightening, he was met by a crimson maple leaf dangling over his eyes.

"Look who it is," came Taichi's voice. Koushirou could hear the grin in it. Then Taichi stepped into view, bag slung casually over his shoulder and the leaf pinched between his fingers.

Koushirou tried to push back an irrational stab of panic. "M-Morning," he said, and faltered. _Brilliant conversationalist, you,_ scoffed the voice in his head.

"Didn't think I'd see you around here for a while. Heard you were swamped at work."

"Heard from who?"

"Your mom, when I called to ask if you were coming to the Halloween party."

They walked into the hallway side by side. Taichi continued his mission to tickle Koushirou's nose with the leaf, and Koushirou tried not to let on how the squeeze of his friend's arm around his shoulders brought back disquieting impressions from last night.

"Oh. Wait - huh?" Koushirou's brow knit. "What Halloween party?"

"You know, the one the culture club throws every year, just for an excuse to sell more baked goods? Last year we paid for the music festival banner that way."

"I thought you quit the committee?"

"I did. Still going to the party. Can't study _all_ the time, or I'll end up muttering to myself about _genotypes_ and _phenotypes_ alone on a park bench like Jou."

Koushirou nodded. That made sense. Something else didn't, though. "Why did you ask my mom instead of me?" Taichi had his cell number. Not to mention his email. And SNS.

"I tried, but you didn't reply. I don't know if you notice it, but sometimes you seem to lose my messages."

"Oh... sorry," Koushirou said, abashed. "Sorry" didn't really cut it. Taichi knew ten different ways to contact him and each one had fallen through because Koushirou was never on top of his inbox. He did have a habit of pushing work-related content to the top of the list, intending to respond to personal messages later, when he was "free." Only it was never later and he was never free.

"Hey, it's no prob." Taichi gave him a friendly elbow in the side. "So I called your house and your mom said you'd probably be stuck at work that night. But I figured I'd ask in person anyway if I got the chance. Yamato's band is gonna play, they're changing the name to 'Knife of Night' and dressing up like vampires."

Koushirou tried to come up with a response to that.

"I know, right." Apparently silence said enough. Taichi went on: "Sora and Mimi-chan will be there too. Mimi-chan's trying to figure out how sexy she can make her costume before the school kicks her out. Jou keeps saying he can't come because he doesn't go here, like that's ever stopped anyone."

"What's your costume?"

"Zombie Ronaldo. I've got the jersey, I'm gonna splatter it with fake blood and tell the rookies I'm gonna haunt them if they don't score a spot in the quarter-finals."

"I assume Ronaldo is something to do with soccer?"

"... Yeah, I forgot you live under a rock."

Koushirou smiled. They climbed the stairs to the second year hallway, where he figured they'd go their separate ways. To his surprise, Taichi followed him right up to his classroom.

"So what do you think?"

"About?"

"Are you gonna come to the party?" Taichi asked with a note of impatience, gazing downward as if suddenly interested in the scuff marks on his shoes Odd. Koushirou thought for a moment.

"Well, I'll have to see what I've got scheduled that day."

"Okay. I guess I figured you'd say that. Try to come though?" He sounded quite earnest. The way his head tilted to one side as he scratched the back of his neck was more endearing than it had any right to be. "It's probably the last chance for any fun until after exams."

To be frank, Taichi could have been saying anything at that moment, and Koushirou wouldn't have heard a word. He was transfixed. Never before had he stopped to appreciate the way Taichi's long lashes swept his cheeks like two black crescent moons when he looked down. 

"Koushirou?"

Right - conversation again. Nothing came to mind except _You're gorgeous._

And he couldn't possibly say _that._

"I-I'll try," he squeaked, with a hard swallow, and hoped that Taichi remained in the dark about how he featured in some of Koushirou's dreams much longer. _Forever_ sounded like a reasonable time frame.

Taichi grinned again. "Awesome." He gave Koushirou's shoulder a pat. "I better go, see you later!"

With that, he made a mad dash up the stairs. Robotically, Koushirou entered the room just as the bell rang. As he sat at his desk, something red flashed as it fluttered from behind his ear. The maple leaf. Koushirou picked it up and thumbed the bright, symmetrical points. Had Taichi... put it there?

 _Ugh, please don't get all mushy over a_ leaf.

He tucked the leaf in his pocket. If, every now and then during the course of the day, his hand slipped down to check that it was still there, it didn't do any harm. No one else knew, after all. He hold himself he'd throw it away at lunchtime, when he had a chance to go outside.

Or by the end of the day.

At least before he got home.

That night he got in bed and turned the lights off. Rain drummed against the window pane. He took out the leaf and held it up, twirling it absently in the dark.

Well, he'd spent the entire day being stupid. What was one more hour?

Cheeks burning, he pressed the leaf lightly to his lips.

He should feel far more ashamed than he did, for letting himself get so out of sorts, for allowing these kinds of thoughts about his _friend_ to take root. It was time to get a grip, to stop all this before it threatened the very fine balance his lifestyle depended on.

And he would.

Starting tomorrow.


	2. Incidents

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The origin of Koushirou's dreams is revealed.

The dreams began in junior high. In fact, the very first of them didn't quite fit the definition of a dream. It was more of a memory of a certain event - that he called The First Incident - which his treacherous brain set on loop for the rest of his second year so he could never escape it.

His brain must have it out for him.

It was summer, and summer meant they went to the pool for gym class. Which sounded a lot more fun than it was. Teenagers, all in that awkward stage of puberty where limbs grow faster than the rest of your body and hair sprouts in embarrassing places, all hormonally-challenged, thrust together in the sticky Tokyo humidity with their bad skin and knobby chicken legs on full display. Plus, there were forty kids in his class who had to share the pool - so it sometimes felt more like "stand around feeling uncomfortably exposed in your swim trunks" class.

To this day Koushirou wasn't quite sure what went wrong. One minute he was standing in line with his classmates at the edge of the pool, trying not to nod off while the teacher droned the safety instructions. The next, he suddenly found himself in the water.

His arms and legs flailed, but only propelled him deeper. He was not a strong swimmer - more of a jellyfish bobbing along with the ocean current than a dolphin, or even a salmon. Soon he was completely disoriented. Up, down, it all looked the same when he pried his eyes open to a stinging wall of chlorine blue.

 _Don't panic,_ he told himself. But he couldn't help it as the need to breathe grew more urgent. A teacher should have realized he'd fallen in, why hadn't anyone noticed?

After that... after that was a blur. He recalled lying on the tiled floor of the pool with his eyes glued shut. Someone was pounding on his chest. That made him cough, thanklessly spitting up all the water in his lungs on the person holding him in their arms. Because there was someone holding him. He tried to make out a face, but each thought slipped away like a fish before he could process it.

The school sent him to the hospital to be checked out. When his parents arrived, they'd been furious. Not in front of him, of course, but he could tell. Both his parents were very even-tempered. They never shouted or cursed, not even in rush hour traffic. But just then they were as near to rage as Koushirou had ever seen. His dad even asked the nurse to let him talk to the doctor without saying please.

According to the doctor, Koushirou had a touch of heatstroke. He recommended rest and fluids. "Lucky you didn't hit your head on the side of the pool when you fell!" he chuckled, making his parents scowl hard (after he'd left the room, of course). Then they insisted on keeping Koushirou home for the rest of the week. Overkill, he thought, but some battles weren't worth fighting. His mother transformed the living room into a temporary bedroom for him, and took to sleeping on the couch herself, as if she suspected he might resume drowning in the middle of the night. Part of him was just embarrassed about the whole thing. Secretly, though, he didn't mind letting his mom dote on him, especially when she suggested he lie back and play video games while she made his favorite broccoli gratin.

"I think they're going to reassign the teacher who was on pool duty to another school in the district," his mother, Kae, said as she passed him a bowl at dinner. "Your classmates say when you fell in the water he stood there looking shocked."

Masami, his father, let out a snort. _"Reassign._ Sounds like the Board of Education. His license should be revoked, if you ask me." He slurped his noodles as if to revoke them too.

"Hmm. I'll have to think of some way to thank Taichi-kun."

At his friend's name, Koushirou stopped eating. "Taichi-san? What's he got to do with it?"

"Oh, don't you know?" Kae gave him a tired smile. "Taichi-kun was the one who pulled you out of the water. Someone from your class ran into the hall and shouted for help, and Taichi-kun happened to be nearby. I heard he jumped in after you fully dressed and tried to give you CPR. I don't think he quite knew how, but he brought you back to us. I'm so grateful."

 _Taichi_ had rescued him?

Not that he was surprised. The opposite, really. He'd witnessed Taichi being a hero firsthand something like a hundred times. He didn't scare easily. And, though you'd never know it to look at him, he always kept a cool head even if others were panicking. _Of course_ he'd rescued him. Who else?

It was just that - well. That Taichi had rescued _him._

The following Monday, his mother waffled about letting him go back to school, but this time Koushirou dug his heels in. He was fine, so he was going to class. Staying home when there wasn't a need was silly. And he'd played through every video game he owned. She gave in, as she always did to his polite but iron-clad arguments.

Koushirou knew Taichi would be at school early for morning soccer practice, so he found an isolated spot in the bleachers and waited. He could tell the exact moment Taichi noticed he was there. He took a long look across the field, and then his mouth split into a huge grin. In seconds he'd sprinted across the field to throw his arms around Kouhirou with a loud, boyish whoop.

"You're back! They said you were gonna be okay, but when you didn't show up the rest of the week some of the guys started coming up with crazy ideas, like that your parents were so mad they made you switch schools." Taichi squeezed him tight. He had a smudge of dirt on the side of his face and his jersey was dark with sweat, but even though Koushirou's clothes were pristine, he didn't mind at all.

"I'm okay, Mom was just being over-protective," he explained with a sheepish glance at his feet.

"Great, hey did you hear thanks to what happened Fukui-sensei's gone? Silver lining, am I right?"

"Y-Yeah, for sure. What -" Koushirou took a deep breath. "Um, what were you doing at the pool that day? Mom said you pulled me out of the water."

He stammered the question came out in a rush, as if there could be something wrong with asking for details about your own near-death experience. He didn't know how to ask what he _really_ wanted to know.

_Thank you for saving my life. I'm so grateful, but I have to know, was there any point during the rescue that your lips touched mine? Asking for reasons that are 100% ordinary, of course, you know how I like to keep a complete record of things that happen to me. Especially since that thing might count as my first ever kiss. Actually, you know what, silly question, haha, just forget I asked it - um, but, was there?_

Taichi let go of him and dropped into the bleachers. He swung his legs over the seat in front of him, slumping down so he was about eye level with Koushirou. "Ah, dull story. My class was in the pool the period before yours, and me and Toyomizu horsed around too much for Fukui-sensei, I guess. So he made us stay after to tell us off until you guys arrived. We were at the lockers when your classmate Kawahara ran in yelling _'Izumi's drowning oh god I think he's dead!'_ His hands waving around like _waaaah_ and shrieking like a banshee. I thought _he_ was gonna need mouth-to-mouth. I made Toyomizu deal with him and just... dove in and got you. Lucky thing you're about as heavy as Hikari in the water."

Koushirou nodded along, though he'd stopped listening at the phrase "mouth-to-mouth." Taichi never said whether he'd tried it, but he was chattering in such a normal way that Koushirou figured his mother must have misunderstood. Because that was the kind of thing you'd mention when recounting your adventures in water rescues, wasn't it? Part of him felt kind of disappointed, but he didn't want to examine it.

So he let the topic drop. When he walked with Taichi to the locker room to change before class, he even forgot to say thank you for the save.

He spent the rest of the day making an effort to focus on other things. It wasn't hard, as he had plenty of work to catch up on after his three day absence. His friends had kept him in the loop so he wasn't as behind as he might have been. The other kids welcomed him back with a warmth and concern he hadn't quite learned to expect, and they were all curious about what had been done to him at the hospital. Not much, he insisted, but the little he could tell seemed to amaze them. There must have been some kind of drama drought going on if they couldn't come up with any better gossip.

And that might have been the end of The First Incident, if not for The Second Incident. Yes, there were two - Koushirou wouldn't bothing calling one "First" if nothing came after. He was nothing if not a stickler for correct grammar. The Second Incident happened on Wednesday of that week, and for months after he couldn't look at a Wednesday without wanting to hide under his bed.

By the middle of the week, the kids in his class had finally stopped grilling him about his hospital stay. He thought they'd lost interest in him entirely, but that proved to be a critical error.

The cursed Wednesday happened to be the next time his class was scheduled for the pool.

His teacher made the move that sealed Koushirou's fate by asking him in front of the entire class if he would rather sit this one out. They would all understand if he wanted to avoid swimming for a while.

Koushirou opened his mouth to assure the teacher that he had no qualms going back to the pool. That, unbelievable though it was, he'd been through much worse. But before he could, someone interrupted with a snigger:

"I don't think Izumi wants to avoid another opportunity for mouth-to-mouth with Yagami in class 3B."

There were times when being a child supergenius was _literally the worst,_ and this was one of those times. As titters rippled through the room, Koushirou's mind raced, infering from that remark that Taichi had been as much the center of school gossip this week as Koushirou himself. And that after what transpired at the pool, his classmates had formed certain conclusions of their own about the two of them - buoyed, in all likelihood, by how much Taichi and Koushirou hung out around school during their free time. From there, it didn't take a genius to extrapolate that these rumors must have been in circulation _for some time._ Maybe even for a _long_ time. 

He sat at his desk utterly stunned. Low, gleeful voices seemed to mutter _'scandal!'_ all around him, like a swarm of insects.

"Ugh, I'd be so grossed out if that happened to me."

"Like watching a dog slobber on a frozen chicken." 

"I think Yagami-senpai's kind of cute, you know, in a dumb jock way."

"Did you see how he opened his eyes while Yagami had his mouth on him? He was totally awake."

"He follows Yagami-san around everywhere. It's such an obvious crush."

"Maybe he fell in the pool on purpose."

"I heard there was tongue!"

 _Ignore it, kids will be kids._ He could hear his mother's patient advice, and wished there was any way he could ignore this situation. But nothing could be less impossible. His classmate's laughter scraped against his ear drums like sandpaper.

"Everyone settle down." Their teacher shot a stern look over his glasses. Koushirou felt a rush of relief. _Yes, just make them be quiet._ "I don't want that kind of talk in my classroom," he went on. "CPR is a valuable resuscitation technique that has saved many lives."

 _Oh no, stop now, please,_ Koushirou frantically tried to communicate via telepathy.

"I'm impressed that Yagami knows it, and that he thought to use it on Izumi, even though Izumi was breathing all right on his own and there wasn't a need."

_PLEASE stop._

"There's nothing romantic, or sexual, about it."

Koushirou could _feel_ the way the entire class buzzed, as only excitable young teens could, at the word "sexual." Suddenly he found himself wishing he _had_ drowned. Or at least gone into a coma. He should have listened to his mom. He could be at home playing video games and eating broccoli gratin right now, instead of -

"S-Sensei, actually - " Koushirou raised a tremulous hand. "Um, actually I - I don't feel good about going back to the pool - I think I'll sit this one out, if that's okay."

"Not a problem at all. I just want you to be comfortable."

 _Great job with that,_ Koushirou thought none too nicely.

He spent the gym period in the nurse's office. At first he thought about going to the library, but there would be other kids there. Taichi might even be there. No, the nurse's office was safer. There were curtains for privacy and the icky smell of antiseptic to ward off all but the most desperate. The nurse felt sorry for him and offered him a milk candy, which was contraband on campus, so he took it. He sucked on it while perched on the cot furthest from the door and looking out the window at the ball field, balancing a textbook and calculator on his lap. Not that anything as mundane as _math_ could hold his attention for more than a minute.

He was jittery with the knowledge that he'd had his first kiss and _he'd missed it._

So his teacher was right. There wasn't anything romantic (or sexual) about CPR. Taichi had _not_ kissed him. In fact, it was wrong of him to be thinking that way at all, because it would mean Taichi had his first kiss too, and also missed it, because he hadn't realized it counted as a kiss. Koushirou hated the thought of stealing that from him.

 _You don't know he's never kissed anyone before,_ his brain pointed out helpfully.

Who? Who had Taichi kissed? Sora? Yamato? Oh god, what if he'd kissed Yamato?

_Calm down, I didn't say he HAS kissed someone, I said you don't know that he HASN'T._

This line of thought was proving detrimental. He was even more worked up than before. At eleven-thirty, he left the sanctity of the nurse's office to go back to his classroom for the next period, shoulders squared and jaw set. All he had to do was deny everything. He hadn't been aware when Taichi had fished him out of the water, let alone when he'd ki- resuscitated him. There was nothing more to it. He'd seen Taichi since the incident and everything had been perfectly normal.

_Except that's not even true, like at all._

Taichi had been normal. Koushirou...

Ducking into the 2A classroom, he made a beeline straight for his desk. The other kids should have moved on from the novelty of fresh scandal - middle schoolers weren't known for their attention span, after all. They would have found something else to talk about by now, and as long as he didn't do anything to remind them -

"Hey," said Taichi, lounging in Koushirou's chair.

Koushirou wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like.

With his elbows propped on Koushirou's desk, shirt partly untucked, Taichi looked the picture of the sort of carefree student that turned up in the section of the school brochure advertising its strong sense of community. Probably laughing open-mouthed at some joke and holding a sandwich.

Abruptly, Koushirou realized Taichi was waiting for him to say something.

"H-Hey," he squeaked. Taichi's brow quirked.

"You good, bro?"

"Y-Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"Dunno. I heard you didn't go to the pool." Taichi shrugged. "I mean, I get it, but it came as kind of a surprise, so I wanted to check that you're doing okay."

Taichi knew about every danger Koushirou had faced in the past, up to and including the accident at the pool. He'd been there for most of them, usually in just as much trouble, if not more. Small wonder he was surprised. Last week's scare paled in comparison to getting shoved into the sea with Gesomon swimming around in the water.

"I'm fine," Koushirou said, and why couldn't he think of a good lie?

_It's a simple matter of ratio vs. proportion. Eg. Terror = Gesomon-infested ocean < your first kiss._

"Really? You know I'm not gonna judge you, right?" Taichi only looked more concerned. _Why_ did he have to be such a nice guy? For all the times Yamato called him an idiot, you'd think he'd try to live up to it once in a while. It would make it so much easier to pretend he didn't like him.

"Yagami-senpai!" One of the girls gasped. "Why are you here?"

A crowd began to gather around them. Taichi kept on smiling as if he didn't have a care in the world. Meanwhile, Koushirou felt as if his own world were speeding toward an premature curtain call.

"Were you worried that Izumi-kun might have fallen in the pool again?" the same girl simpered. Her name was Okamoto and she often asked to borrow Koushirou's notes before exams. From now on she'd have to rely on her own notes, he resolved.

"Aw!" cooed another girl. Someone else snickered.

"Don't worry. I'll save him next time." A boy called Satou thumped his chest. "I'm good at swimming."

"Do you know CPR?" asked another boy.

"Hmm, no. But Yagami-senpai can teach me!"

Taichi blinked. The other kids started pushing Satou into his lap. "Uh, Koushirou's not gonna fall in again, and I don't know how to teach CPR, I just saw it on TV once," he said. He made a move to slide out of the chair, but Satou was now straddling him, his lips bunched in an exaggerated pucker.

"Come on, I want to learn your technique," he moaned. "Show us the passion it took to breathe life back into Izumi!"

"I - I - " Koushirou's mind reeled, unable to come up with a way to stop this. Taichi's eyebrows had risen so high they were lost behind his bangs, and the look of pure confusion on his face was worse than disgust or anger. It was clear that none of the salacious rumors had gotten to him before now.

"Knock it off," Taichi frowned, using a voice he reserved for rookies acting up on the soccer field, or when the younger Chosen did something rash. His "leader" voice.

Satou paused. The other kids quit egging him on, and a moment later he jumped to the floor of his own volition. "We're just playing around, man," he muttered.

Taichi held his gaze. "Okay, you were playing. We're done now. I gotta go or I'll be late for fourth period." He turned to Koushirou. In a more normal tone, he said, "So I'll talk to you after school?"

Koushirou did not know what power Taichi possessed that made people listen to him. All he'd done was stare at them and lower his pitch a bit, and they'd cut it out. How did he manage it - how did he make the shift from lackadaisical boy-next-door to authority figure seem so effortless? As for Koushirou - Koushirou was so humiliated he didn't dare open his mouth in case all that came out was a squeak.

After a minute, Taichi seemed to guess that Koushirou was tongue-tied. He leaned down. "Don't worry, they'll get bored soon," he whispered in his ear.

The knot in Koushirou's jaw loosened.

"You're right," he murmured back.

With a grin, Taichi squeezed his shoulder. He seemed about to say something else when, with a look of surprise, he pitched forward, toppling right into Koushirou. Their faces were already so close that the movement knocked their foreheads together with a _thunk._ Koushirou started to say "ow," then felt someone grab his head and turn it until his lips pressed against Taichi's. It was only the briefest touch - a feather-light graze - and then Taichi wheeled backwards, shoving Satou off of him.

"I told you to knock it off, dickhead!"

The room exploded with laughter. With an irritated glare, Taichi stalked out the door in a huff. He didn't so much as glance back. The bell rang, and Koushirou's classmates scrambled to find their seats. The English teacher walked in and made a face at the sight of Koushirou standing alone and still as a statue in the aisle.

"Izumi-kun? Are you alright?"

"I think I'm going to be sick," he gasped.

There were more giggles, but they came to a stop when he really did get sick all over his desk. He wound up sent home for the rest of the day because he "seemed off-color." Usually he didn't rack up this many absences in a whole year, let alone a week. But at least this way he didn't have to talk to Taichi after school.

That was one conversation he hoped he could postpone indefinitely.

* * *

Such was the story of Koushirou's ignominious first kiss. It would take brain bleach by the gallon to scrub the memory away. It was always there, like a huge, blotted ketchup stain right in the middle of his crisp white dress shirt.

A full month passed before the first dream. By then, the gossip mill really had moved on. Koushirou's plan to hide under his bed forever was thwarted when Taichi, once again, acted the same exact way as always the next time they met. He only brought up the Incident once, and only to say that he wished those kids in Koushirou's class could take a course of Piximon's brand of training. As long as Taichi felt okay pretending none of this ever happened, Koushirou decided he'd go along with it. Besides, his mom would make him come out from under the bed so she could vacuum the floor.

He didn't know what to make of the dreams at first. In the beginning, he'd remember how it had felt to sink, crushed by the weight of the pool water. Unpleasant, but then he woke up. That was the good thing about dreams, you woke up.

Taichi only made his appearance after a week or so of fitful nights dreaming of fighting for air. Every morning he woke with dark bags under his eyes. Asking for sleeping pills would alert his parents to what was going on, so instead he looked online for advice. Tea was the answer, the Internet declared - caffeine-free, of course, and preferably chamomile. So he drank an entire pot and went to bed early.

That night the dream began the same way, with gym class and the too-blue water of the pool. But this time, Taichi was there, leaning over him. This was the part Koushirou shouldn't be able to remember, but his imagination seemed happy to fill in the gaps. Night by night, the dream built on itself - now Taichi wasn't just leaning, but physically holding him; his firsts pounded on Koushirou's chest with a wild-eyed look of desperation; he opened his mouth and dipped his head down. Sometimes Satou stood behind him, giving his shoulders a push. No matter what the scenario, Koushirou always just lay there, like a good drowning victim, while dream Taichi tried to resuscitate him in various ineffective ways, and blurry classmates sneered down at them both.

He could never quite get a sense of what it felt like when their lips met. A problem that soon began to take over his waking hours as well.

And that had opened the door to other dreams, some more fanciful, many less innocent. Thinking of them alone was enough to make him blush. He ought to have put a stop to it a long time ago. Before it became a habit. Since his mind seemed unwilling to pick a new muse, one that wasn't also Koushirou's longtime best friend, Koushirou decided he was allowed his bit of sin now and then, as long as he wasn't hurting anyone with it. Taichi never had to know. After all, if he had to dream, why shouldn't he enjoy himself?

One thing about the dreams that struck him as odd: he could never make himself do anything in them. It was always Taichi who made the first move, Taichi who touched him, who took off his clothes first, who smirked and said the things that made Koushirou wake up all hot and bothered in sweat-soaked pajamas. Koushirou even tried some mental prep before sleeping (which consisted of opening an in cognito tab and scrolling through dirty websites that featured perpetually disheveled young men with smiles like a toothpaste ad). Still, his dream self sat there like a log, unresisting, but never taking control. Half the time Taichi would be the only one to speak, as if Koushirou were some kind of human-shaped throw pillow, or a lump of dough, incapable of thought or even desire.

But these dreams plagued him because he _did_ have desire. Didn't he?

Not that it mattered, since he was sure he didn't feature in Taichi's dreams in quite the same way. That was for the better. He could have his fantasies only so long as they didn't intefere with his daily life. And at least dream Taichi didn't complain about the lack of reciprocation.

It still bothered him though.

* * *

From: Yagami Taichi  
To: Izumi Koushirou  
Subject: so, halloween??

So whats the word?? party's in two weeks. If youve got time you could help with the setup. I know youre busy tho so dont sweat it. Yamatos always nagging me about the food stuff so I told him to get lost and Id ask you to take his place. I even said youd front for the band. He bet me one thousand yen that youre not coming. So you better come because Im broke. If you dont I will have to pay my debt with my body and that could take a while. dont think I'd be that popular. Come or at least help me think up a fake name to use in my new career as a gigolo.

Link: http://questionablylegalmusicsource.co.jp/watch?=v43684w77495re

_"I want you,_   
_I want you so bad,_   
_I want you,_   
_I want you so bad_   
_It's driving me mad_   
_It's driving me mad"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all thanks so much for the comments and kudos last chapter! I managed another one, hope it's a bit of fun

**Author's Note:**

> TBC...!
> 
> Am vibing off autumn and wanted to write a Halloween Digi-fic with a Taishiro spin. Supposedly there will be a Halloween party to justify it. The entire rest is self-indulgent Taishiro decadence. I'm not really sure what the appropriate rating is so it might go up?
> 
> title isn't exactly the killers song but also kind of absolutely is


End file.
